Apple’s iTunes dominate as CD sales fall
August 12, 2008
The online music store, iTunes which belongs to Apple, helped boost songwriters royalties from music downloads by 40% in the first half of the year. This is according to MCPS-PRS Alliance.
The group collects royalties for composers and songwriters. They said the growth in music being downloaded to cut sharply into the sales of CD’s which dropped 15% in the six months to the end of June.
MCPS-PRS Alliance said its members have continued to see a rise in income from public performances, which was driven up 5.4% through a strong demand for live performances.
Alliances secured more than £286m for musicians in the same 6 months.
Chief executive of Alliance, Steve Porter said “The decrease of 15pc in CD sales was overturned by innovation and growth in other areas. We are making inroads into the online market with our groundbreaking licensing deals with iTunes, YouTube and Bebo, with further gains anticipated in the year.”
iTunes has an online catalogue of more than 8 million songs and has added 50,000 movies that are available to rent or buy. iTunes have sold more than five billion songs online. Alliance have said the huge growth in online royalties was “largely due to the continued growth in the licensed online music market led by iTunes”.
Although CD sales have dropped, revenues from other ‘physical’ formats, which include DVD’s and pre-loaded USB sticks, are ahead of forecasts in the first half of the year.
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